The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday challenged an Alabama law making it a felony for doctors to treat transgender people under age 19 with puberty-blockers and hormones to help affirm their new gender identity.
Highlights
- The Justice Department filed a motion seeking to intervene in an ongoing lawsuit challenging the law as unconstitutional and seeking to block it from taking effect on May 8.
- The department sent a letter to all 50 state attorneys general warning that blocking transgender and nonbinary youth from receiving gender-affirming care could be an infringement of federal constitutional protections.
- Trans kids and parents have said Alabama is trying to ban what they consider necessary, and sometimes life-saving care for them.
- Four families with transgender children, two doctors and a member of the clergy filed a lawsuit.
- Alabama Republicans who supported the law have maintained it is needed to protect children.
- Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the “Biden Administration has chosen to prioritize leftist politics at the expense of Alabama’s children”